At the beginning of 2015, I decided to make every month have a theme. For June, I decided on emotional intelligence. My main goal was to understand myself more, and be able to temper myself to understand others better. I often censor myself, trying to fit in, and I pay for it by not being able to communicate how I feel and be honest with myself. I missed the opportunity to connect with people by locking any part of myself away that didn’t seem right. It is like putting a limiter on a burner.
Over the last month I realized how much of a journey this is. I find myself, a month later, at the start of understanding, but I am excited to move forward and learn.
Wins:
- Meditation: I have restarted and begun to meditate . Much like when I restarted this blog, I started small, and just kept my nose down and started. It has been a struggle, but I have learned a lot about myself just by sitting in silence for 20 minutes a day. I am not good at it by any means, but it is a skill I want to continue to pursue. It helps my emotional intelligence by making me slow down and understand my thought process.
- 5 Minute Journal: I have begun to write in this. It hasn’t been as consistent as the Meditation, but I get to it every two days or so. It is starting to get hard to write what I am grateful for, but I think that is part of the challenge. When I do it, it adds to my emotional intelligence by forcing me to think of what I want to do and what I have done.
Losses:
- My GMAT Study: I have let this slide completely. I have to take this up again in earnest. It is a reminder of how much work grad school is.
- Thank You’s: I haven’t written a Thank You note this month. This is something I want to take in as a daily practice, but I find it hard to steady myself to do it. Even a simple twitter Thank You is hard to do because I am afraid of how it’s received.
- Listening: My listening skills are horrible. I am becoming aware of them and it bothers me how often I wait for my time to talk.
- Note-taking Skills: I need to get these ASAP.
Important Posts:
- The Siren Song of Procrastination
- Simple and Difficult
- The Mundane Sweep
- Mind Readers Don’t Need Communication
- No One Else Works Around Here
- Expectation and Anguish
Books:
Habits:
My emotional intelligence is better today than where I started at the beginning of the month. meditation practice and journal are growing. There is a baseline that is developing here for me to grow on.
From the desk of Adam Thomas 